Guide: American Express Business Platinum 35% Point Rebate Airline Bonus
Some of our recent posts detailing Platinum Benefits and Membership Rewards received a lot of questions and comments related to one benefit more than any other: the 35% Rebate on Flights. We recently published How Amex Platinum Members Get Free Changes & Cancellations on American Airlines Without Status to shed light on a little known airfare benefit available to Platinum and Centurion cardholders.
As a business platinum member, you are entitled to receive a 35% rebate of the Membership Rewards points you use to book certain flights through the Amex Travel Portal. An eligible flight is any flight that you pay for with Membership Rewards Points in any airline’s First or Business class OR any ticket sold by your chosen airline. Up to a maximum of 500,000 points per year. If you signed up for the Business Platinum right now with the public 100,000 Point Welcome Offer. Also, the much cheaper Annual Fee ($175) Gold Card is offering a 50,000 Point welcome bonus to those targeted. and only used it for this benefit it would be like getting 154,000 Membership Rewards. Click here to compare these cards and see which is right for you.
How it Works
First, select the qualifying airline you want online, or by calling the number on the back of your Card. You can change your airline selection once a year in January. Find a flight on American Express Travel online or by calling Business Platinum Travel Service and choose Membership Rewards to pay with points with any eligible flight.
Your airline choice is the same airline chosen for the $200 Airline Incidentals Credit. You can choose to pay all or in part with points with a minimum of 5,000 points. Your account will be debited the full amount and 35% of those points will be rebated back into your Membership Rewards account within 6-10 weeks. For Spirit Airlines, Southwest Airlines, or AirTran Airways, to receive your 35% Airline Bonus you must call Business Platinum Travel Service at 1-800-553-9497.
Related: Huge Targeted Amex Platinum 100K Offer Returns: How to Check If You’re Eligible!
Eligibility Details
- Must book through American Express Travel
- Pay in all or in part with points (minimum 5,000 Membership Rewards)
- Any flight on your chosen airline or any Business or First Class flight on any airline
- Use your Business Platinum Card Account
- Flights booked as part of travel packages are not eligible.
Click Here to compare this and other business cards
Airline Choices
- Alaska Airlines
- American Airlines
- Delta
- Frontier Airlines
- Hawaiian Airlines
- JetBlue
- Southwest
- Spirit Airlines
- United Airlines
Analysis
When you utilize the 35% points redemption benefit, you are essentially cashing in your Membership Rewards points for 1.54 cents each. You’ll also receive airline miles in accordance with the airlines loyalty program since these tickets are considered revenue tickets. Also, if you have elite status with the airline, you will be eligible for upgrades the same way as if you’d booked directly.
Another benefit to booking this way is flexibility because you don’t have to search for award availability, which takes a lot of stress out of booking. This benefit can be used in conjunction with discounted Private Fares on sale through Amex Travel. Want to see the benefit in action? Check out How Should I Book This? My Award Ticket Redemption Process- Booking NYC to LAS
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Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Does the regular platinum card have the 35% return or just the business platinum?
Only the business card…It’s not a bad strategy to save up points for a year and then switch to business to get another sign up bonus
It should be noted that choosing southwest is a bad idea. You have to call in to use the benefit, and they charge you something like $30 per segment for the phone booking fee. Which completely destroys the value. Unless I just got a bad couple agents but even HUCA hasn’t worked for me. I’d be very interested if anybody has found a workaround.
I’ve also tried the “book and pay directly with SW then call Amex to have points applied to cover the charges” which works except you don’t get your 35% back…
Check this out, has a nice run down of MR earning cards And categories https://milestomemories.boardingarea.com/guide-american-express-membership-rewards-points/
@ Dave
Max might be referring to the Amex Blue Business card which offers 2 points per $1 on all spend.
@Max what card and spending category allows you to accumulate you’re MR rewards.
They should give you 1.5 cpp up front instead of the rebate. The only reason I have this over the Sapphire Reserve is that I’d get a lot more MR than UR.
@Bethany, do you know if International Premium Economy is eligible on other than one’s chosen airline? Thanks.
I don’t believe so, but I do think it’s worth calling about a specific route since some premium economy fares may code differently in the Amex system. Let us know how it goes
BTW did you look into the International Airline Program? That includes premium economy
Thanks for both comments! I will do so. Can’t book until Sept 18. Cheers.
This system that Amex has come up with is beyond silly. Instead of doing this 35% back and making me use my points 10 times to hit the 1.54 redemption rate they should just give me them up front.
I mean really to hit 1.54 I need to use 30k points like this LOL. Chase has a significantly better system.
30000
10500
3675
1286.25
450.1875
157.565625
55.14796875
19.3017890625
6.755626171875
2.36446916015625
0.8275642060546875
0.2896474721191406
I think I get your point . Wonder what the theory behind that was.